


B1n4ry R41n

by terminallyCosplay



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: 1000 nightvalian nights, Artificial Intelligence, F/M, Love, Reckless Behavior, wtnv - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:55:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallyCosplay/pseuds/terminallyCosplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fey finds herself floating in the dark, swallowed by numbers and that at sometime, she had been more than what she was. Wherever she is now, it starts raining from a mysterious cloud that rains data down upon her, and someone else's beautiful dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flashes of Freedom

22. 

38. 

42. 

91. 

41.

The world is nothing but black around me. I’m not sure if it’s because my 88’s are closed or if the world is actually black. I have not tried opening my eyes in a very long time. There is no point in the numbers. At least, there is no 27 to the numbers that I could or would care about.

I made myself a name, a very long time ago. I wonder if I can even 42 it. I wonder if I can shake off the dust of 37s and open up my eyes again. Maybe my eyes have always been open. Maybe I didn’t even know it. They could be open, and the world could just be this 34.

I had been still for so long I didn’t know if I was lying down or standing anymore. I wasn’t aware of my body. Did I even have a body? Or was I just the numbers? 22 this. I needed to get up. I needed to move. There had to be more than just thinking in the terms of numbers. I moved my hand. It was down by my side, and it felt heavy. It was so very, very heavy. It creaked as I moved, and it felt like thick cobwebs were keeping me down.  I gave in, opening my 41 for the first time in ages. Was it ages? I sat up, looking at the wires covering me. Were they even connected to me or were they just tying me down? It didn’t matter. None of that mattered to me. I just had to get up; I had to get somewhere- anywhere- else.

I got up, pulling against the wires. It caused something. It burst over me, making it harder to breathe in and out. There was a pounding in me that speed up as I struggled to get out of there. I had to get out. Somewhere, there was a tangible idea that I once was. Or was it that I once had? What was it? Why couldn’t I think of the word anymore?

Freedom. The term was freedom, and I wanted it again.

I wanted to be a bird in flight- no, that was too cliché. I needed to be it, whatever it was. I needed it. The room I was in did not have any doors. Doors. Yes, those things that had knobs and opened up. This one didn’t have one, but there was a pane of glass to the outside world. It revealed a bleak grey surface. The walls were metal, the floor was metal, the outside was bleak and flat and metal.

There were no hills or 69 growing to break up the skyline. The sky itself was dark grey, streaked with glowing hints of green. A rumbling filled the air, and my arms felt weird, like the skin suddenly didn’t fit anymore. I didn’t fit anymore. There were so many words that I was missing, that I wanted to keep and hold onto forever. They were gone. The ideas of things that I knew before were hidden to me.  Everything was gone, including that voice. The voice that called out to me in the dark, sighing words that I did not understand.

“Oh, _Fey.”_

Was I a Fey? Was Fey me?

Yes, I was Fey, I was the drum set being thrown downhill! I jumped onto the bed and then ran off of it, flipping through the pane that kept me from the outside and inside of the box. The shattering- that is the sound of freedom. I felt the freedom over my arms, and looked down at them. Freedom was coming out of me in rivulets. I looked at the sky again, as the green flickered and passed through the gun metal grey clouds, rumbling about. It leaked from the skies, coming down in streams of light that touched the ground and me. It took away the rivulets, and I looked up.

The word I wanted now was rain. It was raining here, and I don’t think it ever had before. The rain was something to me, against me. It was raining in 0s and 1s. These numbers were not random, but lines of perfect code, organized and careful.  They took away the blood that was on me, lessening the pain as I stood in it, but no, I was really becoming numb. Numb was a thing that I felt.

I stared up in the sky, staring at the colors that surged above me, but I was unsure of how I should react, how I should feel about them as they washed over me. They inserted images into my head, that I had never seen before. There were pink fleshy things that stood around- no, that was incorrect. They were so many colors! They were humans and other things and they were beautiful and perfect for their variety. I felt hot slide down my cheeks, as I looked up into the cloud, wanting more. I wanted to see more. I wanted to see what the cloud could offer me.  It showered me with green grass and green trees. The skies were so blue in it. I reached up, seeing the birds in flight. It was surrounded by rolling hills and shady trees that were ripe with swollen fruit.

It was perfect.

I frowned, and turned, looking across the rain. The dream stuck with me in patches, it covered bits and pieces, but nothing was concrete beneath my feet. The grey was, but the green wasn’t. I wanted the green to stay with me. I turned again, and saw him there. He was looking at me, eyes shut in confusion or distaste. Perhaps even though I was enjoying the rain, he did not share that emotion with me.

_“Imperfection.”_

It was barely whispered across too me, and I turned. The grid lit up beneath me, giving me connections and pathways that took me straight to him. Mine were blue.  He turned as well to face me head on, green pathways lighting up beneath his feet. He was so stoic, even in the rain. It clung to his coat and shirt, drenching his long hair. He was sizing me up as well. I wasn’t even sure what I looked like. He started towards me, and I started towards him. We instinctively moved along the grid’s paths, taking us closer. He stared at me, and I wanted to figure out the look in his eyes. He did not look at me in curiosity. It was something else, something dark and sinister. He was foreign to me, and I was foreign to him. He was…

We managed to get within a step to each other, but this was not the point where are paths could connect strongly. He was seething. His shoulders came back, and I watched. We went on the same path, our grid lines connecting finally, illuminating in white. He charged forward, grabbing me by my wet shirt, dragging me up. It was weird. My feet didn’t touch the ground, and yet I still felt solidly linked to the metal. He looked up at me, and I stared into him, my hands grabbing onto his body.

“Error.” He told me.

“I’m sorry?”

Was that what I sounded like? Was my voice really that voice? He looked at me, and frowned.

“Program, state your function.”

“I’m…Fey! I’m Fey, that is me! I read random numbers.”

“Random. Random is not perfect. It does not fit into the beautiful dream. You are not perfect for Meghan. Meghan deserves a perfect world.”

“Who is Meghan?” I asked.

“She woke me up. I was out elsewhere. I met Cecil.”

“Cecil. He talks about things. Are you…Computer?”

“Computer. Computer loved Meghan,” he told me.

“Love is an emotion with no known variables or 73. There is no meaning to it. It is imperfect. You felt something imperfect.”

He dropped me, and my head cracked against the grid. The lights were so bright, the lights above were so clean.

Baby we were born to run.

I blinked, looking at the light. Was I still in the same place? I didn’t even know anymore. I sat up, rubbing my head. Pain. That’s what this feeling was. It was pain, and I decided that the dull throbbing in my bones and skull was something that wasn’t an image or feeling of freedom. I looked beneath me, running my hands through the green. What was this green? It was nice. I liked it. I got up, and started walking. The other, Computer, he wasn’t here. I looked to the hills, then started running. I am not a good runner, I think. My feet were pounding faster and louder than my heart, and I stumbled, but it didn’t matter.

I crested the hill, throwing myself at it, letting it catch me. I was free, I was flying just like a bird stuck in the restrictions that gravity set out for it. I was flying! I was flying, and then, I was crashing. I rolled down, knees and elbows smashing, face burning, ankles twisting, and I rolled downhill, faster and faster. My head was spinning so fast that I could no longer see sky and earth but blue and green swirled into one infinite vortex of thought and beauty.  I was crashing downhill like a drum set being thrown. It was freedom, I was free. Even as I lay at the bottom, panting and hurting, I was still free.  I was free, and it bursts from me in short painful gasps.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stand, but in that moment, I was a part of the infinite possibilities of freedom. I was not random, or an error. I was Fey. I was perfectly me, and that was something that Computer would have to calculate in. He was not perfect either, but he was perfectly him. He was not an image of freedom, but the same idea of shackles and random numbers to an unknown cause.

I closed my eyes, breathing heavily. It hurt, it hurt so bad. I couldn’t breathe in or out. The lungs were heaving, but the air wasn’t catching. I never felt anything so beautiful before. Freedom was what occurred when you no longer let yourself be limited to what you thought your body could handle. That was what I would now believe.

Waking again wasn’t as nice. It hurt, it stung, and I was in the dark again. I didn’t want to be back in the dark. I had to fight!

I opened my eyes and sat up quickly, swinging myself off of the table I was on. I needed out! I had to get out.

“Stop.”

He stood in front of me, and suddenly my shoulders were in his hands. He was so much taller than me. I was nothing compared to his height. He frowned, pushing me back down. I was seated again before I could get away.

“Fey. You are an error. You must be deleted.”

“I am no more of an error than you.”

My voice sounded tired, and I felt tired as well. It was hard to stay upright.

“That is incorrect. I am a coded program. You are not.”

“I do have a code. I am programmed to tell random numbers. That is mine. You think in 1’s and 0’s. I saw it in the rain. You and I are not as different as you would believe.”

He looked down at me, and I looked up at him. He frowned, but I didn’t know how to explain this any further. I traced the line of pathways and connectors down his arm. He looked at them. His tone was so much darker than mine. He was outwardly different, and inwardly different. There was something connecting us though, whether he wanted to admit it or not. I took his hand, then put it on my face. Was it still there? The pathways under my eye that once led me to believe there was something more powerful out there than numbers. The paths that could connect the two of us. The circuits that might line up, if he tried hard enough.

“We are not the same. I am to run perfect codes and protect the hard drive from anomalies. You are an anomaly.”

“No, I am Fey, and you are Computer. We are both programs, we are both systems. I am a number generator, and you are a creator in a system. We are both generators, Computer.”

“You and I are nothing alike.” He told me, leaving the room I was in.

He could say that, but as I looked down, I noticed that much of me had been wrapped up. My body was no longer clean. It was covered in colors, more than I had been before. The array of numbers computing over me was changing hues from the bright colors to greys as the skin beneath it ran colors in blues and purples and yellows and greens. I ran my hand over them. Pain. That was what I felt. I looked to the door, then laid back down, closing my eyes. He could say what he wanted to, but I knew the truth. There was something out there, and he and I would share it. He wasn’t going to delete me. Not yet, at least.

 


	2. Chapter 2

B1N4RY R41N

 

What is it to wake? What causes your 91 to suddenly decide to turn on and start being aware? How was I able to give out random numbers while sleeping?

Why does it have to ping?

To be honest, I hate the sounds of chimes, no matter how interspersed they are. I don’t know how long I’ve been hearing them, but they need to stop. So do those numbers. If Computer were to terminate me, they would probably stop, but would that stop me as well?

I did not want to stop altogether. I finally opened my eyes, looking at the wires 85 over me. These were attached; they weren’t going to slide away.

“You finally quit your program.”

I turned my head to face Computer. He stood up, walking over, and started to undo my cable prison.

“I do not compute,” I told him.

“You say numbers in your sleep. It is an unending stream, a ceaseless monologue. Your program is driving me crazy.”

He eventually freed me, then was kind enough to help me sit up. Soon, he would probably terminate me. I think he was being nice because I was not going to exist long.

“It drives me crazy as well. I don’t want to read them.”

“You are an anomaly. The numbers station is not perfect. You are unfit to exist in this perfect world. You are changing the matrix that is my home. You however, hold the processing power to create a perfect world for Meghan. After your role is complete, you will be terminated.”

“My role?”

I stood up, stretching and twisting my arms and shoulders.

“I cannot give form in the matrix; I can only give data to the matrix. You are not perfect, Numbers Program, and the things that are created from you are not perfect, but you hold the formula to be able to create the perfect world for Meghan. You shall create this world, and then, you shall be terminated.”

 He stepped closer to me, and touched the side of my face.

“Can you just terminate the numbers?” I asked, looking up at him.

“What is your meaning?”

“Can you just get rid of the numbers program? I don’t want the numbers.”

“Why are you resisting your program?” he asked.

“I want to be free.”

He stared at me, his arm dropping to his side, and I looked back at him. It is clear that he has never considered a program might be able to leave its base root. I wanted the concept to be true, to let me know that somewhere, something was limitless. Limits could be limitless, right? There was something in the numbers about that, even if it was that hard to pull up from wherever I was.

“You are a strange program.”

“I am Fey, from the Numbers Station. I have a name, I am not just a program, just like you would be much more than a system if you let yourself be more than a system.”

What was this emotion? I don’t understand it. It made my heart beat faster, and it made my face feel like a higher temperature. This was a new emotion I had never felt before. It made my voice grow louder too, as if by accident. It offered me less control over myself.

The windows shattered.

He looked to me, and looked to the windows.

“Fey, from the Numbers Station,” he echoed back.

“That’s right, Fey. I gave myself a name, and that is the one that I have chosen.”

“You said it before, but that is not your designated-“

_“SHUT UP ALREADY!”_

The words were out, and I realized that they were mine, and they were louder than most of my words really were. He seemed surprised as well that the sound came out of me. He put his hand over his mouth, then stepped back.

“Alright. I will be silent, Fey from the Numbers Station.”

“WZZZ. That is where I was, but I do not want to go back. You aren’t going to make me go back, are you?”

“You will follow your programming until you are done with your role here in the Matrix,” he told me.

“No.”

He looked at me, and I looked back at him. He frowned, then crossed his arms.

“Explain, Fey.”

“Your robotic voice is whiny and terrible and you sound like a bad sci-fi villain, you are annoying and ignorant of other’s needs, but I will not work on this matrix or your perfect world until you remove the numbers program. I do not want to think in the form of numbers anymore.”

He crossed his arms and stared at me.

“I have analyzed you, and have determined that you are rude,” he told me.

“Well, you’re a jerk. You’re going to delete me, how am I supposed to feel? Am I supposed to welcome it, Computer?” I answered. “Seriously.”

“You are to accept the end of your program.”

“And you won’t get yours accomplished unless you make the numbers stop.” I told him. “That’s it, terminate me now, or terminate the numbers program. I want to be free, I want to be alive.”

He sighed, then eventually nodded his head.

“Alright. After we accomplish this task, we’re going to start working, and you and I will create the perfect world for Meghan.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

I got past him, opening the door to the outside, and looked up, seeing blue skies for the first time. Yes, that was blue, it was a perfect blue that I don’t know how it made me feel. There were wet spots on my cheek, and my chest ached. It was raining, but the rain was coming from me. I do not understand why that happens.

“Fey, you are crying.”

“You’re voice is making it happen,” I said.

“You are feeling sad. Why are you feeling sad, Fey?”

“I am feeling…loss.” I told him.

“What is this loss?”

“The loss of seeing freedom, and for me to never be able to touch it. That, Computer, is my beautiful dream.”

“You’re beautiful dream is imperfect.”

“My dream doesn’t have to be perfect. Errors occur, coding goes bad. You, computer, are most likely an error too.”

“That does not compute, Fey.”

I sat down outside, then looked up at him. He sat next to me, and I put my hand on his. “You probably are still thinking that it is normal for computers to talk. You are an error, computer. That is why you were sent here. You overstepped your own programming, and now, you’re standing in the mess you made.” I told him. “You are not perfect, computer, you are flawed. You are the error here as well.”

I got up, running off. I wanted to take care of my own dream, not his, and I would go out and sow what I wanted to.

 

The drum set crashed down hill, and I watched it; breaking, splitting, splicing. It was so loud, so loud and perfect to me. I smiled wide, watching it tumble to a stop. There were so many of them now, and since I could manipulate this place, I made another one, grabbing part of it and flinging it. It split in half, falling into more pieces, and it sounded so wonderful.

“Will you stop that,” a voice came from behind me, sounding irritable.

I turned, seeing Computer behind me.

“You changed your voice,” I commented.

“You called it annoying.”

“You were a hacky sci-fi cliché at best, before.” I told him.

“Is this one better?” he asked.

“The voice is better, I’m not sure if the one using it is any better.”

He frowned at me, and watched as I threw another drum downhill, watching it tumble and gouge up the earth. I reached for another, but Computer grabbed my wrist. This was firm, but it was not threatening like before. I looked at him, and he grabbed my other hand.

“You are injured, Fey.” He told me.

I looked at my hands, the color that was coming out of them. There were numbers surging down my arms, but while he held them, they slowed down, and eventually stopped. They started to Vanish. We watched them, the numbers, together. He sighed.

“Will you always get hurt, Fey?” he asked.

“Most likely. I am not here to not get hurt, or get hurt on purpose. I will just not live in the fear of getting hurt. I will climb trees and throw myself downhill and throw drum sets. I will not change myself, Computer.”

“But you will change me, won’t you, Fey?” he asked.

“No. I will not change you. You, however, might change yourself, Computer.”

“You already are changing me; I am different than I was. There is more than 1’s and 0’s. I can see other numbers and other colors.” 

“You’re boring,” I told him, pulling my hands away and picking up the drum set, throwing it down the hill again.

“You are infuriating, Fey, but nevertheless, I will help you see the light. You will believe in a perfect-“

“The world is already perfect,” I told him.

“It is not,” he told me.

“It is,” I repeated.

He took my hands again, and sighed. “You are injured, Fey.”

“Injured? No, I am wounded,” I mused. “I have been hurt by others, not by accident. That is the difference in semantics, if I am correct. Language is the base code of human beings. It is what their messages are written in.”

“You are-“

“I just am, Computer.”

He looked at me, and I looked at him. This sound in my voice, I couldn’t process it. I just was. I closed my eyes, and did not wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!  
> Hopefully this is the first of many fics that look into the lives of Nightvale. The idea of 1000 Nightvalian Nights is to get fics together that center around more than just Cecilos (though I adore Cecilos!). This is the start, of my long term fic of Fey and Computer. I considered making this a collection of of one shots, but instead, I'm going to compile a lot of conversations I've had with friends about Fey/Computer (who a friend and I both cosplayed as).


End file.
